Stuff

This morning’s YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 33%, LAB 39%, LDEM 10%, UKIP 13%. This is a bit more typical of YouGov’s recent polling after a rather incongruous eleven point Labour lead in yesterday’s poll – the underlying average in YouGov’s recent polling appears to be a Labour lead of about eight points.

Given it was the first poll following the spending review (as I said, not something I expect to have any particular impact), it also included some economic trackers. George Osborne’s approval rating continues to be solidly negative – 52% think he is doing a bad job as Chancellor, 25% a good job. However, he has extended his lead over Ed Balls on who would make the better Chancellor. 32% now prefer Osborne, 23% Balls.

Yesterday’s by-election results are really quite interesting,as several people have noted on pt, two Lab gains from Tories with UKIP doing the dirty work ,as it were. ln one the Lab % DECLINED and they still won.
The UKIP vote total was 666, presumably their candidate was Mark O’Thebeast ?

Richard
Thanks for that link,l only tend to peruse one blog,and that’s good ole UKPR,why try the rest when you can have the best eh?

Looking at the UKIP vote yesterday, if l was a Tory strategist l would a) be extremely worried and b) be looking for an electoral pact with said UKIP, what l would not be doing is listening to those who say UKIP is a threat to Labour as well and that therfore everything is fine.

So – if repeated at the 2015 GE I just hope the UKIP voters are happy that they simply helped Labour win – is that what they really want?
If it is then thats fine BUT if they are centre right voters what the hell are they thinking of because that will be all they will succeed in doing!

Sine
If you asked most LD supporters prior to the 2010 Election if they would prefer Tories or Labour to win the large majority would have said Labour and yet we have a Tory Led government supported by the LD parliamentary party.

Less than half of current LD supporters trust the LD/Tory Coalition to deal effectively either with the deficit or the economy. UKIP supporters show an even greater lack of trust.

Presumably UKIP supporters express their intent to vote UKIP because they would like to see a UKIP Government .

The Conservatives have failed to win an outright victory at an election on their own for over 20 Years long before the rise of the FARAGISTAS I suspect UKIP support has made the possibility of Tory victory slightly more remote in 2015 but for any incumbent Government in the current economic situation victory would be against the odds.

For what it’s worth I would expect a small but workable Labour majority but anything from a Labour Landslide to a LD/Labour Coalition is possible

Steve – “If you asked most LD supporters prior to the 2010 Election if they would prefer Tories or Labour to win the large majority would have said Labour and yet we have a Tory Led government supported by the LD parliamentary party.”

Looks much more even than I would have expected. The 2010 Lib figures, I mean.

“For what it’s worth I would expect a small but workable Labour majority but anything from a Labour Landslide to a LD/Labour Coalition is possible”

I would argue that anything at this stage seems possible….even a Tory majority is possible, however unlikely on current polling figures. I would say that a Tory minority government or Con/Lib coalition certainly isn’t beyond the realms of possibility, but it does seem considerably less likely than a Lib/lab coalition or Lab majority for the moment at least IMO.

Personally, I think the Tories should at least try to get Labour in a coalition with the Libs – on anything like current polling numbers, a Con-Lib or Lab-Lib would probably be tricky and fraught with difficulties from the outset. I doubt a coalition involving a much depleted Lib arithmetic would last the full 5 years.

interesting that Balls continues to fall behind Osbourne in polling. It seems to me that George Osbourne is growing in confidence as he continues to finally get across the reality of the countries finances the Conservatives took on.

It comes to something when Labour supporters are writing articles like this.

“The conservatives have failed to win an ouright victory at an election for over 20yrs”.

The only party out of power longer than the Tories for an extended period was Labour who managed 18yrs in a row, its true the Tories never won the election outright in 2010, after being out of power a rather modest 13yrs, but they still formed the government in 2010.

What can we draw from these long periods in the wilderness, only that parties never give up hope, just because you havan’t won an election for a while certainly doesn’t mean you can never win, and if you have to share so be it ,being in power is everything to a politician especially if your the senior partner.

In the time it took me to log in, you stole the words right out of my mouth (the bytes right out of my keyboard?)

@ Sine Nomine,

So – if repeated at the 2015 GE I just hope the UKIP voters are happy that they simply helped Labour win – is that what they really want?

It depends on the Ukip voter. Remember, a fair few are ex-Lab or ex-(LD -> Lab), and probably prefer a Labour government to this one. As for the core group, Nigel Farage has openly said that he sees Ukip as an analogue to the SDP. One presumes therefore that the agenda is to deliberately split the right and punish the Tories electorally (in the process allowing Labour in) until the Tories bow to the pressure to become more like Ukip.

Of course, the Gang of Four had a the germ of a good idea (last time you’ll ever see me type those words) in that they wanted Labour to move to the more electable centre. Farage wants the Tories to move to the less electable fringe, which strikes me as a mistake for getting his favoured policies implemented. Although he’s certainly succeeded in getting an EU referendum on the national agenda, so in Ukip’s narrow scope as a Eurosceptic pressure group rather than its broader scope as a Fifties revival movement, he’s been quite successful.

Yes but Steve, It’s coming to something when staunch supporter Hodges is critical of Labour, something that almost never happens every five minutes over and over again and possibly till the end of time…

Also worth noting that these were local by-elections, the type of election in which the Can’t-Be-Arsed-To-Vote Party performs at its best, followed by parties that draw their main support from older people with stable lives and abundant spare time. We would expect Ukip to be at their peak vote share here (except possibly for the one-issue niche market of the European elections; it will be interesting to see the local vs. European party percentages in 2014).

Even if every current Ukipper remains a Ukipper, the Tories would likely get a higher percentage of votes in a general election.

” It seems to me that George Osbourne is growing in confidence as he continues to finally get across the reality of the countries finances the Conservatives took on.”

This from Money week,

The Coalition has spent the last two years desperately and very publically trying to get our finances in order. We’ve had an “austerity” budget. We’ve had tax hikes. We’ve had “the cuts”.

But for all that, our national debt is still growing at an incredible rate.

Despite David Cameron’s talk of “austerity”, he’s going to add an estimated £700 billion to the national debt in just five years. That’s more than Tony Blair and Gordon Brown added to the national debt in eleven years. It’s more than every British government of the past 100 years put together.

The fact is, when you look at our finances as a whole, the Coalition isn’t cutting anything. State spending is going up… our national debt is going up… and our interest payments are going up.

By the next general election in 2015, our national debt is estimated to stand at almost £1.4 trillion.

” It seems to me that George Osbourne is growing in confidence as he continues to finally get across the reality of the countries finances the Conservatives took on.”

This from Money week,

The Coalition has spent the last two years desperately and very publically trying to get our finances in order. We’ve had an “austerity” budget. We’ve had tax hikes. We’ve had “the cuts”.

But for all that, our national debt is still growing at an incredible rate.

Despite David Cameron’s talk of “austerity”, he’s going to add an estimated £700 billion to the national debt in just five years. That’s more than Tony Blair and Gordon Brown added to the national debt in eleven years. It’s more than every British government of the past 100 years put together.

The fact is, when you look at our finances as a whole, the Coalition isn’t cutting anything. State spending is going up… our national debt is going up… and our interest payments are going up.

By the next general election in 2015, our national debt is estimated to stand at almost £1.4 trillion.

Looking some more at those local election results, here’s a point of minor interest: it seems that Oop North Ukip are continuing to hold their position as the definitive alternative to Labour, as we saw in South Shields.

There’s no reason for this vote to return home to the Tories (or for that matter, to Labour) at a general election because it’s already a protest vote; most of these are safe Labour seats. So what does this mean for the national vote shares?

I do agree with one part of your note. We actually have barely had any austerity. It’s scary people think otherwise, as it could and probably will get a lot harder under Lab or Cons from 2015. I.e. far more cuts and big tax rises.

Re “core vote” I wonder if the cons are now becalmed with a fairly reasonable low combined with a fairly poor “high”. I say that by looking at their VI% over a lot of years and also, as I have said before, comparing their proportionate drop in support to that of their coalition partners.

They may be supported in a less volatile way than Labour [perhaps at between 29-36% or so] but it won’t get them even close to an overall majority [with apologies to TOH’s optimistic forecast].

They may be supported in a less volatile way than Labour [perhaps at between 29-36% or so] but it won’t get them even close to an overall majority

Ah, but you’re failing to take into account the massive influx of Lib Dem defectors they’ll get at the general election due to… um, help me out here, Chris.

More seriously though, you’re right about the Tories, but I wonder how volatile Labour really are post-Clegg. We could be looking at a situation where both major parties are becalmed at around 34-36%, which would bring us back to alternation with an even distribution of voters or PR, but under FPTP will doom the Tories permanent opposition.